© AP Photo/Jeff RobersonFinding some new friends.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is among the most prominent of Silicon Valley's billionaires. Now, his peers seems to be turning against him.
In the wake of the
Cambridge Analytica scandal, tech titans like Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk and Apple CEO Tim Cook have taken shots at Zuckerberg and his social media empire.
The tight-knit tech industry's willingness to openly criticize Zuckerberg marks a turning point in Silicon Valley culture, according to Leslie Berlin, author of
Troublemakers: Silicon Valley's Coming of Age."Until very recently, it was taken as a given that tech equaled progress and tech equaled good and tech equaled economic strength," Berlin
told the New York Times. Now, the idea that tech can do no wrong seems to be changing-at least when it comes to Facebook. Here are a few of the voices within the Valley that have spoken out against Zuckerberg, Facebook, and Zuckerberg's stewardship of Facebook in recent days.
Brian ActonWhatsApp co-founder Acton, whose company was sold to Facebook for $19 billion in 2014, was an
early joiner of the #deletefacebook movement. He posted the hashtag on Twitter on March 20 along with the message, "It's time."
Tim CookAsked in an interview what he would do if he were in Zuckerberg's shoes, Cook
replied, "I wouldn't be in this situation." (For Cook's sake, he better hope that turns out to be true.) It's certainly the case that Apple has built a reputation for taking a hard line on privacy, even
going toe-to-toe with the FBI in 2016 in order to defend iPhone password protection.
Roger McNameeMcNamee, an early investor in Facebook who acted as a mentor to Zuckerberg, has emerged
as an outspoken critic of the company as well as Zuckerberg's leadership. "Seven years earlier, he was more curious, he was more open, he was more willing to take pushback," McNamee
told Quartz of his disappointment in Zuckerberg's evolution.
McNamee was equally open about his frustration with Facebook's reluctance to do more to address user concerns over privacy and security. "This is the most astonishing, disappointing, emotionally draining realization," McNamee said. "Wow, they're going to drive this thing into the ground. Do they think their customers are going to put up with this forever?"
Elon MuskMusk
dramatically deleted the Facebook pages of his Tesla and SpaceX companies at the behest of his followers.
Musk, as noted by
the New York Times, has
previously clashed with Zuckerberg over topics including the future of AI. (Zuckerberg called Musk a "naysayer" for worrying about the potential risks of the technology; Musk fired back that Zuckerberg's "understanding of the subject is limited.") Musk later added that his decision to delete Facebook was not meant as a statement-although, of course, it made a statement regardless.
Beyond Silicon ValleyZuckerberg and Facebook are also taking plenty of flak outside Silicon Valley, as
celebrities like Cher and
Will Ferrell join the #deletefacebook movement and companies like
Germany's Commerzbank pull their advertising. In another high-profile defection, Playboy
announced plans to delete its Facebook pages, which have more than 25 million followers. The move was both a protest of the Cambridge Analytica privacy debacle and a statement about Facebook's "sexually repressive" policies on nudity, per chief creative officer Cooper Hefner.
Leviticus 16:22, "that the goat may bear upon him all their iniquities to a land apart [from men]; and he shall send away the goat into the wilderness." [Link]
Bye Mark. Don't let the door hit you in the arse on the way out